Tag Archives: police training

During the past five years, Norwegian police have been assigned the task of retraining Afghans to serve in a modern police force. The latest report of their success and failure leans more to the negative than to the positive. According to the Norwegian police analysis of what has happened over the past five years, the following are indicative of trials and tribulations of the Norwegians:

In July of this year, an Afghan officer who was being trained as an instructor, took two police cars and nine colleagues and headed off to defect to the Taliban.

Tests conducted on the police recruits for the police program revealed 95% of them tested positive for cannabis and amphetamines.

The police were assigned the task of destroying 50,000 hectares of opium production. They destroyed 4,300 hectares.

Female Afghan police officers are the targets of sexual attacks by their superiors.

Torgrim Moseby, who plays a key role in the training program believes many who have been accepted into the program have ties to tribal chiefs and to the Taliban.

Reality is that Afghanistan will not have its problems resolved by additional brigades of soldiers unless there are efforts to restore dignity to members of the Afghan armed forces and ensure they are well paid and properly led.

The Australian Federal Police confirmed reports they had trained at least 20 Burmese intelligence officers in counter-intelligence operations. Another 50 police from Myanmar also received training. Australian police argued they were simply training police in techniques of preventing smuggling of heroin and of people out of Burma. The training of senior intelligence officers was “in the theory of counter-terrorism recognition and collaboration for combating terrorism.’

A problem training police in how to handle “terrorists” stems from how one defines “a terrorist.” In many totalitarian nations, those speaking out for freedom and democracy are defined as “terrorists.” For many years the United States ran military training operations to train Latin American officers so they could return to their nations and impose totalitarian methods in a more effective manner. Unfortunately, Australian police are guilty of similar actions.